


Andante

by alephnull



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (Lyall Lupin is not abusive!!!), (the implied abuse is in reference to Sirius and his childhood), 1980s, Angst, Canon Compliant, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Loneliness, Lost Years, M/M, Mentioned James Potter, Mentioned Lily Evans - Freeform, Mentioned Peter Pettigrew, Post-First War with Voldemort, Remus Lupin-centric, Remus/OFC and Remus/OMC only appear in one scene each, Sad Remus Lupin, Self-Hatred, Sexual Content, Sirius Black in Azkaban, Sirius only shows up in a flashback but this is still a Wolfstar Story™ primarily imo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:21:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29228376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alephnull/pseuds/alephnull
Summary: ‘Professor Lupin?’ [Harry] said. ‘If you knew my dad, you must’ve known Sirius Black as well.’Lupin turned very quickly.‘What gives you that idea?’ he said sharply.‘Nothing—I mean, I just knew they were friends at Hogwarts, too…’Lupin’s face relaxed.‘Yes, I knew him,’ he said shortly. ‘Or I thought I did.You’d better get off, Harry, it’s getting late.’-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabanby J.K. Rowling, pp. 179-180 UK editionRemus Lupin spends twelve years trying to forgive himself.
Relationships: Remus Lupin/Original Female Character(s), Remus Lupin/Original Male Character(s), past Sirius Black/Remus Lupin - Relationship
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	Andante

_1981._

Remus unlocks the door robotically, closing it behind him. He stands uneasily, swaying on his feet, but not bothering to sit down or otherwise move. Thankfully, he doesn’t think his stomach has any more contents to throw up.

He lets his eyes slide shut. He can’t bear to look at his flat— _our flat_ , his mind supplies helpfully.

Though his eyes are shut, Remus can picture the scene perfectly. There are framed photos atop the fireplace: the Marauders and Lily in Seventh Year, smiling brightly after having finished their exams; Remus with his parents as a young boy; Sirius, James, and James’ parents together as a family; Remus and Sirius alone, together, Sirius beaming photogenically at the camera and Remus smiling softly at Sirius. Remus has various books scattered across their coffee table, with Sirius’ favourite leather jacket slung over the sofa nearby, _PADFOOT_ stitched loudly onto the back. In the kitchen, Remus has an entire shelf dedicated to chocolate (about half of the shelf was gifted to him by Sirius), and Sirius has his own cupboard of Firewhisky. Neither of them drink much, but Sirius still definitely drinks more than Remus.

 _Drank,_ Remus reminds himself.

Remus unsteadily opens his eyes, ambling to the bedroom. He doesn’t bother going to the bed, because he knows the sheets will smell like _him_. Instead, Remus absentmindedly opens a drawer, wanting to occupy his mind with anything but the news that Dumbledore just delivered him.

_James and Lily dead. Harry an orphan. Peter dead. Sirius a traitor. Sirius a Death Eater. Sirius in Azkaban, for life, never getting out, will never speak to Remus again._

Remus shakes his head. He doesn’t want to think about it—doesn’t want to think about all those times he promised Sirius that he was nothing like his family, that Sirius was a good person worthy of love, that Remus loved Sirius and Remus meant forever and Remus doesn’t break his promises. No, Remus doesn’t want to think about it at all.

Remus doesn’t really know what he’s looking for as he mindlessly sifts through the detritus in his drawer, but he gasps and jumps back like he’s just been burned when his fingers brush against a small black box.

Remus knew he hadn’t been spending enough time with Sirius lately. There had always been some kind of Order mission keeping them apart, meaning that Remus had to disappear for days on end without notice. Remus wasn’t stupid; he’d noticed the way Sirius had started to look at him, the way Sirius questioned Remus on where he’d been. Sirius didn’t trust him.

What’s baffling is why Sirius felt the need to be distrustful. Sirius knew whom the traitor was all along: it was him, the sly dog, turning out to be just like his family in the end.

But Remus hadn’t known that at the time, of course. Sirius, the master manipulator, managed to make Remus feel bad for all the time spent away, feel bad for making his boyfriend suspect that he might be a traitor.

Remus wanted to get Sirius something nice for his birthday. He’d never been particularly rich, unlike Sirius with his Uncle Alphard’s inheritance, but Remus had been saving, and spent almost all of his savings on a pair of simple gold rings. Because he was a fool, and he was in love, so in love that it hurt and felt like his heart couldn’t beat without Sirius.

Sirius’ twenty-second birthday will never come, and he will never know of the rings.

Remus manages to find a large crate in the flat, and starts putting things into the crate. Firstly he puts the rings in there, at the very bottom, where he knows he won’t be able to find them unless he’s looking for them. Then he places Padfoot’s leather jacket in there, followed by all the pictures above the hearth of dead men and traitors, tucks away every shred of evidence that the last decade ever existed at all, that there was ever a wizard named Moony who was in love with a handsome boy with long black hair and a secret smile that Moony wanted to keep inside gold rings forever.

The crate gets hidden in a corner of the flat where Remus won’t accidentally stumble upon it, and then Remus goes to wash the sheets of his bed so that they don’t smell of _him_ anymore.

  


* * *

  


_1982._

It’s a chilly autumn morning, still pitch-black outside, when Remus gets out of bed. He takes a shower—not hot, not cold—before dressing up. He puts on his Muggle clothing: a pair of inoffensive jeans, a woollen jumper that Si—that had been called ‘hideous’, and a thick trench coat that Peter gave him for his eighteenth birthday.

Remus has never been a morning person. He’d always be the last in his dorm to get out of bed, often sleeping past midday. When he shared a flat with _him_ , he’d often enjoy waking up to brunch having been cooked for the two of them.

Remus has recently stopped trying to avoid thinking about _him_ so much, because _he’s_ embedded into Remus’ every thought, into the very understanding of whom he is. Remus can’t _not_ think about _him_ , because _he’s_ a part of Remus, and Remus hates himself for it. A life with _him_ is the only life Remus has known since he was eleven years old, and Remus grants himself the small mercy of at least thinking about life. Life is a luxury he lost at the tender age of four, gained again at eleven, and lost again at twenty-one.

So Remus leaves the house as the pitch-black sky begins to show the first hints of dawn, wrapping his coat around himself warmly. Remus checks that the door is locked, that the wards are working, and then makes his way into town. Moony was never a morning person, but Remus Lupin supposes he is.

For the past three months, Remus has managed to hold down a job as a Muggle cashier, which has paid the rent and put food on the table—that’s more than Remus could ask for, really. He’s—well, he’s not _okay_ , but he thinks he’s getting by, that he’s learning to live again. He could build a life like this: Remus Lupin, the quiet young bachelor, life practically a blank slate. His life before twenty-one is gone, burnt to ashes, and his life now is not exactly wide open, but it’s… it’s _available_ for him to claim.

Blocks of flats pass by until Remus reaches a high street. He’s too skint to buy anything from the little shops lining the street, but he likes the ambiance of a street that should, by all means, be bustling with life, but it’s silent right now, as though the world is holding its breath. Remus lets his feet carry him onwards, worn boots padding quietly along the pavement.

It’s only a matter of time before Remus’ mind drifts to long black hair and stormy grey eyes and sharp jawlines and even sharper tongues.

For the first year after he lost James, Lily, and Peter, Remus would read a lot of books. He would read a lot because, if he didn’t, he’d think about _him_ and _his_ wicked eyes and cruel grin.

Even though Remus should hate _him_ , even though Sirius is the fucking _traitor_ , Remus feels the loss of Sirius the worst. Because James and Peter and Lily were his best friends, but Sirius was—

Sirius was _Sirius_.

Remus loved James and Peter for showing him friendship when he thought friendship was not meant for little boys like him, and he loved Lily for being a friend he could always go to when the other three were being far too rowdy and annoying. But Sirius was… he’s different, has been different since about Third or Fourth Year. Sirius loved Remus in a way the others didn’t—and yes, Remus uses the word _love_ , because Remus has met some damn good actors and liars in his life, but he couldn’t imagine a single human on Earth who could act the way Sirius did and not actually love Remus. Sirius called Remus ‘Moony’, but he looked at Remus like he was the entire night sky, like Remus was home, like Remus was safety, like Remus was love itself.

Perhaps Sirius stopped loving Remus at some point, towards the end—perhaps that’s why Sirius felt able to work with the people who wanted Remus dead—but Remus can’t convince himself that Sirius didn’t love Remus at Hogwarts. If that was fake, then love isn’t real.

Remus asks the question that has haunted his mind since it happened: _why?_

The Ministry of Magic has declined all of Remus’ requests to visit Sirius. Of course, Sirius is dangerous, and shouldn’t be allowed around any creature other than a Dementor. Remus thought that perhaps his lycanthropy, the fact that he’s Dark just like Sirius, would mean that they’d let him see the prisoner, but the Ministry had still refused.

It’s just—there’s no fucking _closure_. Sirius had gone to prison without trial (what trial was necessary? There was no possibility other than guilt; he was caught in the Merlin-damned act), and Remus was mostly grateful for that, because it meant he wouldn’t have to testify (Remus _lived_ with the man, for Merlin’s sake, of course he’d be questioned), but it also meant that Remus would never see Sirius again other than in the terrifying _Daily Prophet_ pictures, never hear his voice, never hear him explaining why he did it or if he regrets it or _anything_. If there was a trial, at least they’d be in the same room—at least Remus might get some answers.

With his requests to visit the prisoner denied, Remus then resorted to sending letters to Azkaban. He got a letter back the first time, explaining that you couldn’t write to prisoners and Sirius wouldn’t receive the letter, and had received no replies the subsequent times he’d written—presumably, they were just throwing his letters away as soon as they got them.

He just wants to ask one fucking thing. _Why did you do it? Why did you destroy my life?_ Perhaps two things: _Did you really love me, or was that a lie too?_

Remus passes by a church, the tallest building in the town. The tower reaches up into the brightening sky, as though trying to reach Heaven, but it’s weighed down by the inevitable, crushing weight of stone. The last of the stars reflect in the stained glass windows, distant and cold in the morning sky.

Remus retrieves a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. He picks out a fag and uses a Muggle lighter to light it, pressing it between his lips. He winces at the taste; he’s never liked tobacco cigarettes, and would always hate how Sirius tasted after he’d been smoking, but he can’t deny that the nicotine is relaxing. Merlin knows, his mind needs relaxing these days.

Cold morning light has flooded the town at this point, and Remus begins to make his way back, pressing his index and middle finger to his lips as he smokes. It’s as though he’s holding his lips together, careful of the name that might escape from them like an exhale after you’ve been holding your breath for a while.

He says it in his head instead, because he can’t say it out loud:

_Sirius, Sirius, Sirius, Sirius, Sirius._

  


* * *

  


_1983._

The charcoal sky looms heavily over the city, stars drowned out by the flashing advertisements and lit-up skyscrapers. Cars race by, headlights blinding Remus for a second before moving on, again and again, like the undulating of a snake. A cyclist whizzes by just then, and Remus worries absentmindedly about the cyclist’s safety on the darkened road. The cars whizz by quickly; it would be all too easy for a driver to not spot the cyclist.

Remus has finally escaped Britain, deciding to live a mostly Muggle life in Toronto, just to see what happens. He is a dead man with nothing to lose, so why not?

Britain has nothing he wants anymore. It’s a country haunted by dark-skinned boys with messy hair, round glasses, and an exhausting enthusiasm for Quidditch; by vivacious, sharp, powerful young witches lost far too soon; by boys with mousy brown hair who glowed just for being included; by boys controlled by the tug of the moon and love, undying love, for best friends who are all dead now. Britain has far too many ghosts. Remus was only staying for his father, really, so when his father insisted that Remus leave the country, there was no question about it. And besides, for the past few years, the English Muggles have had a new Prime Minister, and Remus would be lying if he said that the Muggle Prime Minister didn’t scare him at least a little. It would be nice to just get out of there.

Remus walks past a street vendor who offers him some kind of kebab, past a busy bar full of strangers, through a plaza bustling with people who keep crashing into him, probably accidentally—it’s hard to avoid in a city like this. Remus walks past _people_ , lots of people, more people than he can count. You could probably fill multiple Hogwarts with all the people Remus has walked past tonight.

Remus is surrounded by crowds and bodies, by glinting eyes that reflect the city lights, but he’s never felt more alone. His father is in England, and his friends are all dead or worse, and Remus doesn’t fucking feel alive. It’s like nobody here is real: not Remus, not the people in the crowd, not _anybody_. Everyone who was real died two years ago. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, Prongs, and Lily, all six feet under or as good as.

A loud bark tears through the air, a brown dog illuminated by car lights as they chase a small rat across the road. Remus thinks inexplicably of Padfoot, of playing fetch with him and taking him for walks on sunny afternoons. He wants to reach out to the brown dog, wants to scratch them behind the ears and hope that he can love another dog like he loved Padfoot. _Please,_ Remus thinks to himself, _don’t let Sirius have ruined dogs for me too. He’s already taken everything else._

Sickly, off-amber light from the street lamps casts warped shadows as Remus reaches the train station. He steps into it without thinking, frowning as he opens his wallet to pay for a ticket. He can afford it, but he’ll have to skip dinner.

Sometimes, Remus has been skint enough to duplicate Muggle money when he’s in a hurry. The money will disappear after a few hours, but that’s not his problem, not when he’s got his food and paid his rent already. He’s not proud of it, but he decides that not starving is the least he deserves after all this.

When Remus finally musters up some shame about this, he skips meals to pay rent instead. It’s not like he isn’t _trying_ to get jobs; in fact, he’s gotten several jobs since moving to Toronto. He just loses them quickly. It turns out that it’s hard to even get Muggle jobs when you’re a werewolf, when you have to take sick leave every month and face questions about your scars and why your employment record seems to be a series of very brief minimum-wage jobs.

Remus bitterly remembers being at Hogwarts. James and Sirius would slip money into Remus’ pockets when Remus wasn’t looking—or when they _thought_ Remus wasn’t looking—and Remus would let them do so without complaint, because that money was looking after his sick mum, or feeding his aging dad.

There are probably people in England who would help Remus if Remus went to them and asked for it, but why would he do that? He’d sooner watch his ribs protrude from his torso than swallow his pride and admit he needed help.

It passingly occurs to Remus that Sirius’ will left his assets split evenly between James and Remus. What was left to James will probably go to Harry (whom Remus has not seen since Before), and the rest is Remus’. Remus wonders why the Ministry doesn’t just give him the money now—it’s not like Sirius is ever getting out, not like he’ll ever use that money again. But, at the same time, it’s not like Remus wants to live off of Sirius’ money anyway.

Remus hands over the Muggle money, and the tired worker hands him a newly printed train ticket. Remus thanks the worker with an equal level of exhaustion, and makes his way onto the train platform.

There’s a red-haired woman standing next to him on the train platform, and she doesn’t look anything like Lily, but perhaps Remus’ mind wants to torture him, because he thinks of Lily anyway. He remembers Lily on her wedding day, and remembers thinking that she’s never looked more beautiful, that James must be the luckiest man on Earth. He remembers fearing for Lily, getting married in the midst of war—obviously because the couple had no idea how long they had, because they wanted to tie the knot before it was too late—but the Lily in his memories is not ravaged by the war. She’s young, and beautiful, skin clear and veil flowing atop her hair, bright green eyes shimmering as she walks down the aisle.

Remus remembers, with the ghost of a smile, how James looked that day too. He finally decided to use some hair product to tame his unruly hair (Remus privately thought that he looked a bit ridiculous with neat hair, and that messy hair had always suited James better), and looked nothing like the boy Remus grew up with. James Potter had looked like a man, not a boy, on that day. It was the closest he got to growing old.

Remus tries not to think about the best man.

A Muggle train pulls into the station, lights bearing fluorescently down upon the people stood on the platform. When the doors open, Remus steps on and takes a seat. He’s found a surprisingly empty carriage—he supposes that rush hour is mostly over by now.

The train begins to move, darkened scenery whizzing by outside the windows, and Remus tilts his head back. He lets his eyes slip shut, remembering that time in September nineteen seventy-four when he fell asleep on the Hogwarts Express, and woke up to being covered by Sirius’ robes.

When he dreams, he dreams of Lily, of her hexing James in Second Year and kissing him in Seventh, of her cradling a swollen stomach in the middle of a war, and of her gravestone where she’s buried with the man she spent years trying to hate. She was twenty-one years old, but all’s fair in love and war, Remus supposes.

  


* * *

  


_1984._

Sunlight tears the man out from the wolf, the cruel morning light casting long shadows over Remus’ bloodied body. He really shouldn’t have spent a full moon out in the forest, where anyone might stumble upon him, but he couldn’t afford the fee to use his usual shelter this month, and—

Well. It was just a mistake, that’s all.

Remus sees no bodies around him, and he knows this forest is not technically open to the public anyway, so he forces the panic inside of him to settle, and instead lets himself feel his bones and joints, human again, aching with the pull of the moon and the scorch of the sun. He presses blunt fingers against bruises, hissing at the pain until it subsides. He runs a hand over his torso, and the hand comes back smeared with blood. Remus groans lowly.

It’s probably the moon, Remus thinks. The moon broke down Remus’ mental defences, letting the segregated parts of his mind mingle into one continuous thread, like the border between two oceans.

You see, Remus has a part of his brain labelled _Sirius Black_ (he doesn’t think he’ll ever get rid of this part of his brain—he’s tried, but it just seems to be etched into his very soul), a part of his brain surrounded by towering stone walls to ensure that no innocents accidentally stray into it. Remus has gotten very good at avoiding this part of his brain most of the time, only ever visiting it when he consciously wants to, when he feels the bruises don’t hurt enough and he wants to make it hurt, if only to know he’s alive.

Today, though, Remus unconsciously wanders into the _Sirius Black_ part of his brain. His whole body aches: aches with the moon, aches with the sun, aches with the brightest star in the sky. He _misses_ Sirius, and that’s not something he lets himself do, not ever, not after what Sirius did to them all.

Because the sturdy stone wall doesn’t seem to be working right now, Remus stumbles right across a memory in the _Sirius Black_ part of his brain. There’s a young boy with hope in his eyes and leaves in his hair, grinning at Remus, promising to Remus. _You’ll never have to transform alone again,_ the young boy says, his long black hair forming a curtain around his face as he leans over Remus’ tired body.

_How many more lies did he tell?_

Remus and Sirius were perfect for each other, really. Two monsters in love—they spent their childhoods fighting the Darkness within them, Sirius fighting the Darkness running through his veins, and Remus fighting the Darkness in his muscles and sinew every full moon. Sirius succumbed to his Darkness, and Remus honestly doesn’t understand why. Remus would sooner die than let himself hurt another person.

The sun has risen too far for the stars to be visible. Remus is grateful for that small mercy. He doesn’t know what he might do or say if he looked at the sky and saw Sirius.

  


* * *

  


_1985._

Moony may be dead, but he definitely lives on in Remus Lupin. Right now, Remus is hiding in the library, shielded by several stacks of books he’s looking at. He’s not hiding from a particular person—the friends he’s made in Toronto have been nice enough, but he’s not close to any of them, and there isn’t anyone here who would look for Remus.

No, Remus is just hiding from the world, really. The war’s been over for more than three years, and Remus supposes he should be grateful for that, at least, but it’s not like the world has gotten friendlier since then. It seems that, as the magical world comes down from the war, the Muggle world rolls on at full steam: back in England, the miners have been on strike for almost a year now, and Remus worries for their fate, given the current government and dwindling number of strikers. Here in Toronto, there’s talk of a new disease—the Muggles seem to think it’s God’s punishment for men like Remus. What’s concerning is that magical folks don’t seem to have a cure for it either. Remus doesn’t need another incurable condition, doesn’t need anything else to prevent him from holding down a job.

Remus puts his quill down on the desk. His head hurts, and he’s not going to get any more work done today. Instead, he stands up, stretches his legs, and wanders around the labyrinth of bookshelves.

He’s in one of the few magical libraries in the city. It’s got a Muggle-Repelling Charm on it, so it’s safe for witches and wizards to take a break from Muggle life, to flick through books that bite you if you turn the pages too quickly, or that transform into little birds if you rub your finger on the right words.

He’s absentmindedly walking along an aisle when he spots a book, reads the spine, and stops.

> _Soulless: A Critique of the Usage of Dementors in Azkaban_ by Helena Davis

Without thinking, Remus reaches for the book and pulls it out. It’s on the thicker side, at four hundred and fifty-nine pages, with a fairly modern-looking cover. Most of the books in this library look centuries old, but when Remus opens the book, he sees that it was published in nineteen seventy-two. _I was twelve,_ his mind helpfully supplies. That’s the year when his friends told him they knew his secret.

Remus makes his way to the armchairs in the library, sitting down as the afternoon light streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Dust motes catch the amber light as Remus inhales the smell of old books and parchment, and breathes out again. Remus smiles. It’s always been one of his favourite smells; he remembers brewing Amortentia in Potions as a student, and surprisingly, he successfully made the potion the first try. It smelled something like this (it also smelled like wet dog and Sirius’ ridiculous citrusy shampoo, but Remus tries to not think about that part).

The book is genuinely quite interesting, all thoughts of a certain convict aside. It discusses the research on the lasting psychological effects of long-term Dementor exposure, on instances of innocent people who have been imprisoned for up to five years, on the effects of solitary confinement, and the last chapter discusses alternative visions of justice, even making the bold suggestion of abolishing Azkaban.

 _Azkaban should exist,_ Remus thinks. _For people like him._

Remus is surprised at how quickly he’s moved through the book when he puts it down. It’s dark outside now, the starless sky hanging over the city like a concrete ceiling.

Remus can’t stop thinking about the book, really. Remus thinks of Sirius losing his happiest memories (he mustn’t think about what Sirius’ happiest memories are), thinks of Sirius going insane from the isolation. Is he already insane? If Remus visited him now, would Sirius know who Remus is? Would he remember… would he remember what they were Before?

Honestly, having read the book, Remus thinks Azkaban is too cruel for most people who get sent there. He’s now read of the horrifying psychological torture that prisoners are put through, reliving their worst memories over and over and over again for years on end, never seeing another human being, and if Remus was a braver man, he’d admit that there’s only one person on Earth he wants to see put through that. Everyone else should be let free. Let Sirius Black pay for ruining Remus forever.

Remus closes his eyes, lets his head fall against the back of the armchair. He’s caught up on the _memories_ thing. He lets himself wonder what happy memories Sirius might lose. There’s James, Sirius’ first ever friend, and Remus is glad that Sirius will lose that. He deserves it for killing him. There are also Sirius’ other friends: Peter, Lily, Marlene, Dorcas, Mary, Frank, Alice, everyone else in their friendship group. Remus is glad Sirius will lose them too. He doesn’t get to keep people whose lives he’s ruined.

But then… Sirius was happy with Remus. He was so happy. Remus _knows_ Sirius—or at least, he thought he did. Surely… surely no actor could fake happiness the way Sirius did, the way he fucking _glowed_ when he spent afternoons with Remus, the way the corners of his eyes would crease, and the skin next to his nose would fold, and he’d grin with his entire face, perk up with his entire body. How could one fake that so effortlessly?

No, Remus knows what Sirius is like when he’s lying. Remus remembers what Sirius would say that summer at the Potters’, right after Sirius had been disowned, remembers Sirius’ insistences of _I’m fine_ , _stop worrying about me_. Remus remembers when Sirius received a letter, and when the other Marauders asked him about it, Sirius had simply shrugged it off robotically, saying it was from a friend. Later that day, Remus had found Sirius sobbing in a broom cupboard; the letter was from his mother.

So Sirius wasn’t faking it when his entire body lit up at Remus’ very presence. (Remus thinks that Sirius couldn’t have been lying when he said he was on the Order’s side during the war too, by the same logic, but he dismisses this train of thought before it can torture him.)

Remus thinks of Sirius. He thinks of Sirius forgetting, and he thinks of Sirius remembering. He’s not sure which is worse.

Remus wishes he could tell someone. He wishes he could tell someone that he was hopelessly in love with Sirius Black, a monster in love with a monster. His love for Sirius was whispered in the gaps between light and shadow, where the world was suspended for just a minute. It’s never been theirs to share with the world, and now the world will never know. Now Remus and Sirius will die like this, with an ocean between them, a tragic story of young boys in love and old men alone.

Remus has had plenty of opportunities to tell it all, to spill his soul onto parchment, or to some oblivious Auror questioning him. He could tell them everything, tell them how Sirius had pressed secrets into the gaps between their hearts and souls, how Remus had held Sirius when he was disowned, how Sirius had protected Remus from himself every full moon, promised to never leave, promised that Remus was worth loving. But he couldn’t tell them, because they wouldn’t understand—they’d never understand. Sirius Black is a burden that Remus alone must bear. This love would die with them; this secret would haunt Remus’ heart until his dying day, and Sirius’ ghost would move on, unable to haunt anyone else.

Remus falls asleep at some point, head tilted back against the armchair, book still in his lap. He’s woken up by the sunrise, by the floor-to-ceiling windows that give Remus no reprieve.

  


* * *

  


_1986._

Soft white snow crunches beneath Remus’ boots as he walks down the Toronto pavement. It’s the first snow of the season, and it’s only a thin layer, but Remus smiles at it anyway. It snows much more often here in Toronto than in Britain—Remus wants to enjoy the winter weather while it lasts. It’s his last day in this city.

When Remus Lupin was twelve years old, a young Sirius Black had pulled Remus aside and told him that he knew Remus’ secret. Remus had denied it at first, but he was sorted into Gryffindor for a reason. With some of that mythical Gryffindor courage, Remus had stopped running from his problems, and instead faced them head-on. He was still terrified, of course, but fear and bravery go hand in hand.

Fourteen years later, Remus Lupin finds himself in a similar situation. He’s been running from his father and from Harry, and it’s time he faced his problems and fought his ghosts.

He writes to his father often, of course, and his father never tells him to come back, but Remus gets the impression that Lyall Lupin is lonely. Remus has been selfish, staying in Canada to avoid confronting his father.

Remus also writes occasionally to Dumbledore to ask how Harry is doing. He does it less and less often these days, as the answer has always been the same since nineteen eighty-one: Harry is safe, and you mustn’t attempt to contact him for his own safety. Remus wants to see Harry, at least just the once after everything happened on Halloween—Remus is Harry’s family too. He was practically Harry’s uncle, and he’s an honorary godfather, given his relationship to Harry’s actual godfather and the current status of said godfather—but if Dumbledore says no, the answer is no.

Remus’ father has set up a Portkey. Remus will be home for Christmas. His father insisted upon meeting Remus at the Portkey, so when Remus bends down to touch the tucked-away pile of rubble, that familiar, nauseating hook behind his navel pulling him to England, Remus faces his expectant father in an English forest.

Lyall Lupin looks old beyond his years, with a thin, frail frame, as though his bones could snap like twigs. If Remus didn’t have his _condition_ and could hold down a job for more than a few months, he’d go to live with his father and look after the aging man. But Remus has a sneaking suspicion that his father is doing better than him, and if Remus went to live with his father, his father would end up taking care of Remus, not vice versa, so Remus stays away.

Remus’ father smiles warmly at his son, opening his arms in greeting. Remus accepts the hug, walking over to his father and squeezing the other man tightly. Lyall Lupin is a fairly tall man, but Remus is about an inch or two taller than his father now. Everyone had been surprised when Remus had shot up in height over the summer between Third Year and Fourth Year, and ever since then, he’s been the tallest of the Marauders.

Remus internally winces as he remembers the group of friends, seeming evergreen in their youth. Remus’ Hogwarts years were like an endless summer: time was measured in pranks, in the number of detentions before the next full moon. Remus is back—this is the country where he found friendship for the first time, where he fell in love, where he lost everything. This is the country where his mother died, the country where Remus was bitten, the country where Sirius Black took everything from him and ruined Remus forever.

“Let’s head back,” Remus’ father says, pulling Remus out of his reverie.

Remus frowns.

“You know I can’t stay.”

Remus’ father pats Remus lightly on the back.

“I know, but you can spend the night catching up with your old man, can’t you?” Remus’ father says, a gentle smile on his face.

Remus’ lips can’t help but lift at the offer, and he nods before he can think to say no.

“Of course, dad.”

Lyall Lupin leads the way through the woodland, autumn leaves crackling beneath two sets of footsteps. The white sky hovers neutrally above, unjudging, uncaring. It’s a familiar sight, and Remus sighs. He never really felt homesick for Britain, but as he walks through the forest, he realises he’s glad to be back. He was never really at home in Toronto, never made any close friends. Of course, stupid, foolish Remus’ home is wherever his friends are.

Remus trails behind his father a little, letting himself take in the scenery. _Home,_ he tells himself. Remus has felt at home perhaps thrice in his life.

The first time he felt at home was in his parents’ house with a loving father and doting mother. It hasn’t felt like home since his mother died.

The second time was at Hogwarts, where he found scary things like _friendship_ and _love_ and everything else Remus thought he could never have. There were three young boys who loved Moony fiercely, and Moony loved them back. They would die and kill for each other—that’s how it was supposed to be. The Marauders against the world, and the Marauders would win.

 _We’ll be eighty years old and I’ll be running under a full moon with you. You’ll never have to transform alone again,_ a familiar voice echoes in Remus’ head. Because Remus is hopeless, he still notes the pronouns in the sentence. Had Sirius forgotten to say ‘we’? Why did he say ‘I’? Either Sirius forgot about the other Marauders, or…

Remus swallows, stepping over a large rock to catch up with his father.

Remus’ third and last home was simultaneously the smallest and the largest: the flat he shared with Sirius after Hogwarts.

It was a shabby thing, and very cramped. There was only one bedroom mainly because they could only _afford_ one bedroom (Sirius didn’t want to blow his inheritance on a nice flat, not when neither of them had a stable job), so that was very fun to explain when friends came over. Despite the flat’s run-down state, Remus and Sirius made it home. They cleaned up the flat with magic to the best of their abilities, hung pictures of their friends and family all over the walls, Christened every surface of the flat with mindblowing sex, covered their bedroom walls with posters of Muggle punk rock bands (courtesy of Sirius), stocked up an entire shelf with chocolate (courtesy of Remus, but Sirius bought him about half the chocolates anyway)—the flat was their whole life.

It was with Sirius that Remus first understood the meaning of _infinity_. Before, he had thought it was one of those funny abstract things they teach you in Arithmancy, but it doesn’t really exist in real life. Remus was wrong, though, because he found infinity in stormy grey eyes, in the private universe that Remus and Sirius occupied together, in the entire rainbow of emotions he felt with Sirius. Remus knew what infinity was when he felt the unbridgeable gap between him and Sirius during the War, when nobody really knew whom to trust, when there was a spy among them and _it could be you; please say it isn’t you; please tell me something true_.

Sirius taught Remus the meaning of _infinity_ and _forever_ and _eternity_ and all these funny abstract words, stretching the small space of their flat into wild running fields under a full moon, into the entire night sky with its Dog Stars and moon phases. Sirius taught Remus _everything_ , and then he burned it all to ash.

Remus stayed in the flat After, but it wasn’t the same flat, not really. It was like he had moved to a new flat. The furniture was the same, and the layout was the same, and it still had that same weird musty smell he would question the landlord about, but it wasn’t the flat that Remus had called home for three whole years of his life. Remus hates himself for how he’s acting—it’s like in one of those Muggle romance novels, where _home is where the heart is_ , or something ridiculous like that. _Where’s my home if my heart has been broken into a million pieces, and I’ll never fix it?_

Remus trails after his father lethargically. He doesn’t have the energy to be angry at Sirius anymore. _I don’t care if you killed James. I don’t care about anything anymore._

“Come back,” Remus whispers into the forest. His footsteps carry him further and further into England, but further and further away from home. “I never got to say goodbye.”

  


* * *

  


_1987._

Every now and again, Remus does this. He grips the quill between his fingers and spills his soul onto parchment.

Remus never really learnt any other way to deal with things. Back then, Remus would always talk to _him_ about anything and everything. Remus’ problems were Sirius’ problems, and Sirius’ problems were Remus’.

Remus has started keeping a second crate next to the first one, filling the second crate with inkstained parchment, Remus’ looping scrawl smudged into letters. He stores the crates in the attic of the cottage he’s been renting since returning to England. Remus briefly wonders what would happen if the Aurors searched Remus’ cottage—because he’s a werewolf, or because of his proximity to events in the War, or for some other reason—and suppresses a bitter laugh at what they might think upon finding these crates. _Sirius Black’s Secret Gay Werewolf Lover_ —Remus can see the headlines already.

It’s not hard to get the letter started.

> _Padfoot,_

It’s always been so easy to talk to Sirius, even when he’s hundreds of miles away, separated by ocean and towering stone and the thunder of the Lord’s wrath.

> _The full moon was terrible. My whole body still aches. Nobody looks after me after a full moon anymore. I guess that’s part of growing up._

In all of the letters, Remus has never asked any of the scary questions that always lie just behind his lips, never quite real enough to escape as a whisper. _Did you really love me then? Why did you do it? Was any of that real, or did I make it all up in my head?_ Loony, loopy Lupin, inventing boys in his head and falling in love with them too.

> _I’ve been working on my crossword skills since you’ve been gone. Today, I filled in the_ Daily Prophet _’s puzzle; number 8 down was ‘ANIMAGUS’. I wonder if you’re still as good at crossword puzzles as you used to be. I suppose you haven’t had much practice, these past few years._

Just as Remus does not ask difficult questions, he never gives the difficult answers, either. He never writes _I miss you_. He never tells Sirius that he doesn’t care if Sirius was a traitor, doesn’t care if Remus made it all up in his head—Sirius is the only one left alive who even remotely understands. If Padfoot and Moony, Moony and Padfoot, was just a made-up tale, then Sirius was half of the writing team.

> _Christmas is coming up again. Do you remember Mr Potter’s fantastic casseroles? You always used to write to me about those on Boxing Day, and insist that I try them. I remember when I first tried his casseroles—they were about as good as you hyped them up to be._

The letters vary in tone, oscillating from anger and hatred, to conversational chatter. Remus doesn’t know whom he’s really writing to most of the time—perhaps he’s writing to Sirius Black, the Azkaban inmate, or perhaps he’s writing to a young boy called Padfoot who was named after a star but was really the whole damn galaxy, and Remus thinks he made this boy up in his head, but he’s not really sure—he wishes Sirius could write back to Remus, so at least he’ll know whether or not Padfoot was made up. Or, perhaps, Remus is writing to some alternate universe version of Sirius Black, one where Sirius never betrayed the Order, one where the boy Remus fell in love with was always real. Sometimes Remus thinks he’s just writing to himself, that Sirius took everything from him, even his own mind.

> _Bagnold and Thatcher have just been re-elected. I suppose people admire Bagnold for her handling of Death Eaters after the War, but she’s horrible on werewolf policy. Plenty of werewolves fought for the light—I did, didn’t I? I worry for what might happen to me if Bagnold keeps chucking werewolves in Azkaban. I suppose I might join you, huh? And Wolfsbane prices have only kept rising, with no increase in the minimum wage. I keep saving up, but sometimes I feel like I’ll never spend a full moon as myself, not at the rate that Wolfsbane prices keep going up. I wish I had your money._

Remus feels the need to commentate on current events to Sirius. It’s not like Sirius would have access to newspapers—to him, the world is still as it was in nineteen eighty-one.

Remus still remembers when he and Sirius—and the other Marauders too—voted for the first time when they were twenty. Remus didn’t vote the year before in the Muggle election because he was on Order business, but Dumbledore ensured that no missions would overlap with the magical election. It was the height of the War, but Remus doesn’t remember the day as a wartorn one, no; he remembers Sirius’ puppylike excitement to finally be doing Adult Things, remembers Lily lecturing the boys on Bagnold’s “warmongering imperialist foreign policy”, remembers James nodding along to Lily’s lecturing (Remus can’t remember the last time James ever disagreed with Lily on something), remembers Peter’s jittery anxiety to be going outside in the middle of War. _Peter._ Peter, gone far too soon, so full of innocence and always so eager to be friends with the other three. Peter had never so much as batted an eye at Remus’ lycanthropy—Remus doesn’t think he’ll find a friend like that ever again.

Remus voted again, twice this month—he’s eligible to vote in both magical and Muggle elections. He supposes that there are some perks to being half-blood. This year, he had no friends to accompany him to the polling station, no fiery-haired women to lecture him about foreign policy.

The only person he really has to talk politics with is his own father. He remembers staying at his father’s house not long ago. Lyall Lupin had grumbled about Lord Halsbury’s “disgusting homophobic comments”, so Remus can at least sleep at night knowing that, if he ever told his father about Sirius, his father would be at least sympathetic. But Remus doesn’t want sympathy—he wants someone to understand, someone to _help_ and tell him he’s not going crazy. His father can’t do that, because his father doesn’t know what he had with Sirius, couldn’t possibly ever know, even if Remus tried to tell him. Remus’ relationship with Sirius has always felt inexpressible, beyond human language, even before Remus had kissed Sirius for the first time to prove the Sorting Hat right. If this was one of those Muggle romance novels, Remus would say that Sirius ‘had always understood him’, but that wouldn’t be right—Sirius has misunderstood Remus plenty of times. But what made Sirius different was… well, if Remus could explain it, then he wouldn’t have to worry about his father understanding.

> _~~I hope you are well.~~ I’ll speak to you again soon, I suppose._
> 
> _Yours,_
> 
> _Moony._

Remus sits and stares at his letter for a few minutes. The ink dries, and then Remus balls the parchment up and chucks it into the crate where he keeps the rest of the letters. One day, he’ll have the guts to burn that crate, and the other one too.

  


* * *

  


_1988_.

Remus stands at the stovetop, peering at the pasta through the pot’s transparent lid. He’s never been a particularly good cook—Before, Sirius was always the one to cook—but having finally bought his own house and not living with anyone else, it’s about time he learned.

Remus doesn’t stop to think about what it means when he chose to make Sirius’ comfort food, spaghetti carbonara. It’s just the first dish that came to mind, that’s all.

Going to retrieve cheese from the fridge, Remus lets himself sigh; he likes this cottage, he really does, but he can’t help the bubble of shame that rises when he thinks about how he came to own it. His father practically _made_ him take the money, insisting that Remus’ father could afford it. Remus’ father didn’t mention that Remus could never afford to buy the cottage anyway; Remus still can’t afford Wolfsbane, although he thinks he might be able to try the potion for the first time in a few moons with his savings so far. Paying bills and his mortgage is cheaper than paying rent, as it turns out, and the price of Wolfsbane seems to be stabilising; all Remus needs to hope for is that he won’t get fired in the next few months. He’s been trying really hard, showing up the morning after a full moon and all, because if he just keeps this up a while longer, he can finally spend a full moon as himself.

As Remus makes the sauce in a pan, the smell of carbonara fills the air. Remus worries his bottom lip between his teeth. It smells just like evenings at the flat when Sirius would make this dish for himself after a rough day doing Order missions ( _or missions for Voldemort,_ Remus adds bitterly) and Remus would wrap his arms around Sirius from behind, dropping kisses to the shell of Sirius’ ear as he cooked. Those moments were more intimate than sex, Remus thinks—just filling in all the tiny gaps in someone’s life, sharing everything with them, _living_ with them—lying on the sofa, eating dinner, doing the crossword. Remus wonders if he’ll ever have that with anyone ever again. (He also wonders if he ever had that with anyone to begin with, or if that was also a lie.)

And where is Sirius now? He’s supposed to be hundreds of miles away, separated by towers of stone, so why does it feel like Sirius is still here, still haunting Remus everywhere he goes? It’s like Sirius is _in_ him, like Sirius has just gently pulled Remus’ chest apart and climbed inside, squeezed around Remus’ heart and compressed his lungs. Remus will never be free of Sirius.

Remus uses tongs to carefully drop the al dente spaghetti into the pan. The spaghetti sizzles fantastically when it hits the pan. It smells—well, it smells fine, to be honest. It’s gone a lot better than Remus was expecting, but he doesn’t think too hard about it lest he jinx it.

Stirring the food around the pan, Remus lets his mind wander again. It’s a dangerous thing to do, really, but Remus Lupin’s life is full of danger: lycanthropy, befriending someone like James Potter, fighting Death Eaters. Remus loves to straddle that thin line between Gryffindor courage and boyhood foolishness.

When he remembers it, he gasps, nearly dropping his tongs he’s been using to stir the pan.

  


_“She said—she said everyone’ll leave me one day. And it’s true, isn’t it? My mum, my dad, my brother—they all saw what I’m really like. I’m a rotten person. You’ll all realise I’m a fuck-up one day,” Sirius mutters into Remus’ chest. Remus feels his school shirt dampen with his boyfriend’s tears, and clutches Sirius tighter._

_“Don’t be ridiculous,” Remus says, voice taut with unidentifiable emotion. “Why would you listen to anything_ those people _say? Me, Wormtail, Prongs, Mr and Mrs Potter—we’re your real family, and we’ll never leave you. We love you, and we’re always gonna care for you, Padfoot.”_

_Sirius lets out a humourless laugh._

_“‘Snice of you to say, but you don’t know what the future brings. I’m not Mr and Mrs Potter’s actual son, or Prongs’ actual brother, and Wormtail’s just my school friend. And we’re both young, aren’t we? None of you have any reason to stick around me, and I can’t imagine why anyone would want to,” Sirius mumbles. He shakes his head. “Don’t mind me. I’ll stop moping later.”_

_Remus’ fist clenches and unclenches. He tries to not let his anger show, because Sirius will think Remus is mad at him, of course he will. But Remus is fucking_ furious _at Walburga and Orion for convincing the most wonderful, brave, loyal, and kind boy Remus has met that, somehow, people are bound to leave him._

_“Nonsense. We’re not just school friends—we’re the Marauders. We’ll be best friends forever, ‘till death do us part, no? ‘Till all the mischief is managed,” Remus says, rubbing his thumb against Sirius’ deltoid. “And… and I won’t ever leave you. I promise. I mean it.”_

_Sirius looks up then, staring searchingly into Remus’ eyes._

_“What?”_

_“I said I’m not gonna leave you. I know we’re young. I know that’s what every teenager says. I don’t care. I mean it, Padfoot. You’ll always have me.”_

_Sirius swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing silently._

_“Don’t say those things. Don’t… don’t do that to me.”_

_“I meant it. Please, believe me, okay? Just believe me. I promised it, and I meant it. Not gonna leave you, not ever.”_

_Sirius shuts his eyes, breathes slowly against Remus’ chest._

_“‘Kay. I believe you.”_

  


Remus plates the spaghetti, covering the countertop with spaghetti and carbonara sauce in the process. His hands shake, magical energy sparking at his fingertips.

He broke his promise.

It doesn’t matter if Sirius was working for Voldemort. It doesn’t matter if Sirius killed Mr and Mrs Potter’s son. Remus still promised, and he meant it. He meant it unconditionally.

When Remus retrieves a fork to eat the spaghetti with, he finds he isn’t hungry. He wonders if Sirius would be hungry right now, locked up miles away, the heavy weight of stone and the sea pressing in on him on all sides. Remus has left him in there, just like Sirius left Remus out here, facing perhaps the cruellest fate of all four Marauders. At least Sirius had the mercy to kill James and Peter. Had Sirius left Remus alive just to hurt him the most?

  


* * *

  


_1989._

It’s a cool March evening, Remus’ breath puffing up in front of him as he ambles through the English countryside. The overgrown grass flattens beneath Remus’ boots, a suffocating silence smothering the scene. Remus emerges from a forest of fir trees which opens out onto a large lake, tall mountains in the distance. The dark grey-purple of the mountain rocks fades seamlessly into the black night sky. Remus sits down on the grass by the lake, where a thousand stars glimmer indifferently on the surface of the water.

Remus picks blades of grass between his fingers, worrying the plant with his thumb and index finger. It’s a Saturday night, so he doesn’t have work tomorrow. He’ll stay out here and enjoy the perks of living in the middle of nowhere, free from the perils of love and war in civilisation.

In another lifetime, Remus might have lain beneath a sky full of stars and let beautiful boys explain all the different constellations to him. _He_ had always said _he_ ’d felt safer at night, when _his_ family was asleep, when it was just _him_ and Moony, the curtains drawn around one of their beds, whispering lowly in the dorm room. Once, late in Sixth Year, _he_ had dragged Remus out of bed at midnight and taken him outside to stargaze. Remus had mocked _him_ for it at the time, but it’s one of Remus’ fondest memories now. He thinks of it when he casts a Patronus.

Remus tears his eyes from the reflected stars in the lake, and looks up at the sky instead. He glances over the tiny pinpricks of light, so far from humanity. Remus wonders what it’s like to be a star, burning brightly for millennia before finally dying: ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Some explode in brilliant supernovae, and others just fade and cool to a black dwarf, long forgotten in the cosmic abyss.

The moon is in its first quarter right now, a wan semi-circle pulling, always pulling, at Remus’ joints and muscles and tendons. That’s something that James Potter, bless his heart, had never really understood. For all Remus had tried to explain it, James had always thought that lycanthropy was a monthly thing, that Remus was Remus for twenty-seven-and-a-half days, and a wolf for one night. Remus is never human, and he’s never a wolf either; he’s always a werewolf, always subject to the push and pull of the moon, ever aware of its presence, even at daytime.

The moon and the stars, the only constant in Remus’ life. Everyone he loves may die, and beautiful boys with secret smiles may turn out to have never existed at all, but the moon still waxes and wanes, still claws out the wolf every twenty-eight days, and the stars still glitter coldly down at Remus, the Dog Star the brightest of them all.

Remus wonders if _he_ would ever be able to cast a Patronus again, even if _he_ was given his wand back. He remembers that book he read in Toronto, remembers the effects of long-term Dementor exposure. He thinks, briefly, about _him_ getting Kissed by a Dementor, and Remus’ stomach turns at the thought. He hopes it never happens, because if it does, Remus will be the only one left, the only one who _knows_. Who will be able to tell Remus that it wasn’t all made up in his head if _he_ gets Kissed? A soul sucked out of a man, never to be seen again, deep and ancient magic that cannot be reversed… All evidence of Moony wiped from existence, the Marauders existing nowhere but in Remus’ own haunted memory.

Something bubbles from the depths of Remus’ gut, unfurling slowly in his belly, pushing up into his chest. It seizes the breath from Remus’ lungs as he stares at the brightest star in the sky, something straining to break free from behind Remus’ ribcage—

“I love you,” Remus whispers, words billowing up into the night sky like a secret prayer.

The words sound like release, like Remus has been wanting to say them for a very long time. He hasn’t spoken those words since Before, and he’s accepted by now that the way he feels will never change.

It’s nineteen eighty-nine in the middle of the night, and Remus Lupin is in love with Sirius Black. This, at least, he knows.

  


* * *

  


_1990._

It’s the first time Remus has been intimate with someone since Before. _He_ can’t control Remus anymore—Remus will move on because there’s nothing else to be done. He’s still in love, of course he is, but he’s not going to resign himself to a life of celibacy just because of _Sirius fucking Black_.

This evening, Remus was at the bar, hands running through his light brown hair nervously. He had gone for a woman this time, because maybe women would remind Remus less of _him_ , but as the woman’s long black hair falls gracefully over the curve of her spine, the candlelight creating chiaroscuro between the woman’s pale skin and dark hair, Remus can’t help but think of _him_. It might have helped if he had gone after a woman who doesn’t have long black hair, but Remus’ subconscious has a way of torturing him silently.

The woman moans softly, her sinuous curves outlined by the yellow candlelight of the inn room, and she’s nothing like _him_ , not really. _He_ would moan loudly— _he_ ’d do everything loudly: laugh loudly at James’ jokes, sing loudly out of tune, cry loudly when _he_ was disowned, cheer loudly at Quidditch matches, shout loudly to get Remus’ attention. Remus thinks of how _he_ would always do everything full-force; nothing was a half-measure with _him_. The woman, on the other hand, arcs her spine ever so slightly, hair tumbling across her shoulders and the mattress and her back with gentle elegance. It’s not the aristocratic, cruel elegance of _him_ —it’s her own kind of elegance, and Remus is grateful for these differences.

“Faster,” the woman says.

Remus can’t see her face from behind. He’s glad for this fact; he doesn’t think he could look anyone in the eye as he does this, pulls himself apart just so he can put himself back together, better than before. He obliges the woman’s request, snapping his hips at a more punishing pace. He wants this to be good for her too, because she’s done nothing wrong—she’s just some stranger from a bar, and she had been nice enough to Remus when they were chatting. Of course, he’s had nothing but his own hand for the past eight-and-a-half years, but he tries his best to summon his muscle memory from Before, tries to roll his hips in the way that _he_ —in the way that worked Before.

Remus gently lays a hand on the curve of the woman’s waist, tracing the dip of it, the way it broadens out to her hips. She’s beautiful, honestly, and Remus hates himself for doing this to her, for making her his first After. _Sorry it had to be you._

It’s like pressing fingers into bruises, and it hurts so good. Remus _wants_ it to hurt so he can feel something, anything—so he can feel _alive_ , and maybe so that he can punish himself for falling in love with Sirius Black.

Remus’ hips stutter, falling into a staccato rhythm as he approaches completion. The woman arches her back more as Remus’ mind chants _Sirius, Sirius, Sirius—_

“Rebecca,” Remus gasps, remembering the woman’s name, and spills into the condom.

  


* * *

  


_1991._

Remus’ muscles relax in post-coital calmness. He’s sitting in bed naked, duvet pooled around his hips, next to his boyfriend, Ben. Ben’s quite good-looking: short coiled black hair, smiling eyes, the subtle curve of muscle beneath dark skin. Remus unabashedly admires his boyfriend’s body, following the curve of his pecs, to the scars on his chest from top surgery—thin, pale lines raised above dark skin—to the definition of Ben’s abs. By all means, Remus should be proud of himself.

Most importantly, Ben is nothing like _him_. Ben is mild, moderate, always sensible. He’s calm and kind in all situations, never losing his temper, never letting his emotions get the best of him. He’s a proper gentleman, not a shred of rebellion in his beating heart, and has probably never gotten into trouble in his life. It’s why Remus pursued Ben in the first place—of course, he does genuinely like Ben, but he wouldn’t feel compelled to date in his sorry state if it wasn’t for the additional motivation of getting over _him_.

Ben is a half-blood wizard, and Remus told Ben he was a werewolf after the second date. It’s a good thing Remus went for a wizard—he can’t imagine explaining to a Muggle that not only werewolves are real, but that they’re dating one.

Ben’s nice about it—he’s nice about everything. He didn’t drop everything and leave as soon as Remus told him. They sat down together, and Ben asked Remus lots of questions, but was never rude. Ben would then go on to insist that Remus wasn’t a monster, that Remus was human too just like him, but Ben doesn’t _get it_.

Remus isn’t a human, not at any phase of the moon or any time of day. He’s a werewolf for all phases of the moon, whether the sun beats harshly down onto the pavement, or if the stars twinkle distantly onto the Earth. He’s a werewolf no matter the weather, no matter what he does, no matter what potions he drinks. He is neither man nor wolf, and there was a time when Remus felt understood, a time when a gorgeous boy with long black hair loved all of Remus, even the werewolf bits. Ben sees Remus’ lycanthropy as something to love Remus _in spite of_ —he pretends Remus’ lycanthropy doesn’t even exist. Remus locks himself up in the basement every full moon, and Ben doesn’t meet Remus’ eyes the morning after, and then they go back to normal and pretend nothing happened. Ben will remind Remus to take his Wolfsbane—he even pays for the potion, but Remus can’t stop thinking that it’s only out of pity—and Ben’s perfectly _nice_ about it, but Remus doesn’t want him to be _nice_ ; he wants Ben to understand.

It’s fine, though. Ben’s not perfect, and neither is Remus. Ben doesn’t know what it’s like to be a werewolf, and Remus doesn’t know what it’s like to be trans, and there are gaps in their relationship that can’t be bridged, but that’s probably how romance is supposed to be. Maybe that’s how it was with _him_ too, and Remus just invented a perfect man in his head, a false memory, crafted from what Remus wants it to have been.

Remus isn’t even bitter about it, not anymore. He knows that people like him are not supposed to be happy, that Hogwarts was too good to be true. When the sun shone brightly for seven whole years, Remus should have known that it wasn’t to last, that he’d lose everything and go back to how he was supposed to be all along. He spent a lifetime’s worth of happiness in Hogwarts, and this is what happens when you don’t consider the economy of it all, when you waste all your joy in seven short years—you won’t have any left.

Remus looks back up at his boyfriend’s smiling eyes, and tries to return the smile. Remus thinks he’s happy, although he’s not sure if he knows what happiness feels like anymore—that might just be another false memory, another patchwork man in his head.

Ben will never be _him_ , and that’s one-part mercy and one-part torture, just the way Remus likes it. He might never be able to change how he feels about _him_ , but that doesn’t mean Remus won’t let himself enjoy other people too.

“I love you,” Ben says.

_Oh._

Sweat gathers in Remus’ palms, a thick lump forming in his throat. _Say it back,_ Remus urges himself, trying to build the words in his lungs.

Remus takes the time to curse life, curse fate, curse any deity that may be up there. _Fuck you,_ Remus thinks to the sky. Whatever higher power may be out there—it took everything from Remus at the tender age of twenty-one, and gave him a childhood lover whom he can never fall out of love with, no matter how much time passes.

Remus has a loving boyfriend, a host of friends he sees every now and then, and a father who loves him too, but he’s still so, so lonely. He’s sitting here beside his committed boyfriend, who has just told Remus that he loves him, and Remus has never felt more alone.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to say it back,” Ben says, after realising that Remus isn’t going to respond. “I just wanted to tell you.”

Remus tries the words out in his head: _I love you, I love you, I love you. I’m in love with you._ He stops, though, because he knows those words aren’t directed at Ben.

But, oh—Remus _hates_ Sirius Black, _loathes him_. Sirius ruined Remus for anyone else, broke his throne and cut his hair, stole the breath from Remus’ lungs and left him breathless. Remus will always be haunted by Sirius’ ghost, will always live in the shadow of _his_ heart. Remus will never be free. Maybe that’s what he deserves.

Remus swallows dryly, trying to clear the lump from his throat. He _likes_ Ben, of course he does—if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be dating him. But he can’t fall in love with Ben because everything Ben does is compared to _him_.

Ben’s nice enough. He’s handsome, compassionate, a far better-functioning member of society than Remus has ever been. Remus thinks that, in another lifetime, he could have loved Ben if only it wasn’t for _him_. And Ben _deserves_ to be loved; he’s a lovely man, really, and Remus is the problem—it’s always Remus.

“Sorry,” Remus mutters, and that’s all he can manage to say.

Ben kisses Remus chastely in response, a silent _it’s okay; we’re okay_. Guilt gnaws at the pit of Remus’ stomach, because Ben deserves so, so much better. Really, everyone Remus has slept with After deserved better.

Remus looks away from Ben towards the calendar hanging on the wall. It’s the middle of October, brilliant shades of orange and yellow blanketing the pavements at this time of year. Soon, it’ll be ten years since Before passed over into After, when he goes on his annual trip to St Jerome’s graveyard. He’d say it’d be a decade since _he_ had ruined Remus forever, but if he’s being honest, Sirius ruined Remus a long time before nineteen eighty-one.

Remus wants the mercy of moving on, the mercy of forgetting, so he pushes the thoughts of Quidditch-obsessed boys and intelligent fiery girls from his mind, and goes back to kissing Ben, to seeking any kind of physical reprieve from his ten-year vigil.

  


* * *

  


_1992._

It’s a dreary morning in April, and Remus is hiding from the world in his attic, the muted patter of raindrops being the only sign that the outside world exists. Pieces of paper and parchment are strewn haphazardly across the creaky floor planks, the loft in disarray as Remus leafs through his belongings.

Remus broke up with Ben a while ago. It’s the first breakup Remus has actually experienced. Sirius was his first, and obviously, they never had a _breakup_ to go through. There was no goodbye, no _it’s not you; it’s me_ , no moving into parents’ houses—nothing, absolutely nothing.

Ben took it with grace, which only made Remus feel worse. He wanted to be shouted at, to be hurt, but Ben had just smiled sadly and accepted it. He said he saw it coming.

Remus takes one of his photo albums and opens it to the first page. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get over the shock of seeing their faces again after all these years.

James Potter was holding the camera an arm’s length away, trying to get all four boys into the photo. Sirius was next to James, then Peter, then Remus at the end. They all grinned youthfully at the camera, faces flushed with that kind of excitement you only see in First Years. They’re crowded in the dorm room, and from the fact that the floor isn’t covered in undergarments, Remus guesses they’ve just finished unpacking and setting up the dorm room. He checks the date of the photograph: _04/09/71_.

Remus puts the photo album down, trying to clear the uneasy lump in his throat. He picks up another piece of parchment off the floor at random, trying to not think about how hard this will be to clean up. He almost drops the piece of parchment when he recognises the handwriting.

> _Sluggy looks more constipated than usual today. -S_
> 
> _Did you hear how he just groaned when he bent over to pick up a quill? I shouldn’t laugh at old people’s health problems, but Merlin, Slughorn makes it hard. -R_
> 
> _I know right! He sounds like he’s doing a really tough poo. -S_

From the fact that they signed their notes with _R_ and _S_ instead of _M_ and _P_ (which they had always done after coming up with the nicknames), Remus guesses this must be from a Potions class in Second or Third Year—maybe First, but Remus would’ve probably been too timid to pass notes in class back then.

The conversation continues down the parchment as they come up with creative similes to describe the red colour of Slughorn’s skin, up until Sirius ponders how a hypothetical partner would be able to find Slughorn’s prick, and Remus admonishes Sirius for his vulgarity. Remus’ message is last, because Slughorn had then noticed the note-passing, and made Remus pass the parchment to him. Slughorn had read out their conversation in front of the class, to the great amusement of Sirius and the great horror of Remus. They had both received a week’s worth of detentions for that—Slughorn had ensured that they were in separate rooms for their detentions.

Remus blinks. He really shouldn’t look upon that memory with fondness, considering—considering _him_ , but… Remus was the happiest he’d ever been at Hogwarts. He doesn’t have it within him to deny himself the luxury of remembering.

Remus picks up the photo album again, letting the piece of parchment drift away into the sea of memories scattered about the floor. He opens the album to a random page, grinning involuntarily when he sees the photo he’s found.

Remus remembers taking this photo early in Fourth Year. The photo depicts a majestic stag in the centre (James had insisted on being the centrepiece) with a large black dog standing next to him, and a brown rat twitching his nose, perched upon the stag’s antlers. They’re standing outside on a quiet patch of grass, no river of students milling around. They had gone there after Peter had run up to Remus, glee unconcealed on his face.

 _What have you done now?_ Remus had said with amusement. He had only hoped nobody had died.

 _We did it!_ Peter had cried.

 _We’re Animagi!_ Sirius had added.

After much joking about what animals they would turn into, Peter had finally broken up the argument and taken it upon himself to transform first. Though he would soon be dwarfed by James and Sirius’ Animagus forms, Remus remembers the other three boys being very impressed with Peter’s achievement when he had first transformed.

Then James had transformed, followed by Sirius. Everyone immediately made jokes about Sirius’ name upon finding out his Animagus form, before Sirius had turned back and reminded the Marauders that one of them was a werewolf named Remus Lupin.

Remus turns to another random page further on in the album. At first, it seems that the photo he’s turned to is just a picture of a bright blue sky, broken up with some tufts of fluffy white cloud, but then two boys on brooms whizz past. Remus could never mistake those two figures.

He checks the date of the photograph: _19/08/76_. It was the summer when Sirius got disowned, when Remus was still formally upset at Sirius for sending Snape into the Shrieking Shack (though, try as he might, he couldn’t manage to actually hate Sirius for more than about a month), and when Sirius had truly never looked worse, face sallow and eyes downcast. It was a combination of having lost his three best friends for his recklessness (Remus thinks this was entirely deserved in hindsight) and being rejected by his family on top of that (which was not as deserved, though Remus struggles to muster sympathy for Sirius now). Remus can only think of the photos of Sirius he’s seen in the _Daily Prophet_ , eyes sunken into their sockets, hair shaking wildly as the photographed Sirius screams at the camera. Other than that, Remus can’t think of any other time when Sirius looked like this.

James had managed to convince Sirius to fly with him, and Sirius had smiled for the first time that summer when he was in the air. Sirius had never been particularly fond of Quidditch—James had made him join the Quidditch team in Third Year, but Sirius didn’t seem to have as much enthusiasm for the sport as the rest of his team—but he did at least seem to relax when he zoomed through the sky, wind cutting through his long black hair. Mr Potter had taken the photo and sent it to Remus, whose heart had ached at the sight of his then-crush.

Remus flicks to another page then, not wanting to ponder that difficult summer any longer than he has to. In the next photo he finds, Sirius looks himself again, complexion healthy, grey eyes bright.

In some old photos of his parents, Remus has noticed that his mother or father wouldn’t quite be looking at the camera. They’d be looking just beyond the camera, eyes ever so slightly off, and their face would be lit up fondly.

Sirius has this look about him now. He doesn’t quite look at the camera, but instead looks at the photographer, and his eyes soften in a way that one wouldn’t usually associate with Sirius Black. Remus had taken the photo on a night out late in Sixth Year. They were on a date, and had been boyfriends for about two months.

Sirius’ leather jacket—that fucking leather jacket, with _PADFOOT_ emblazoned on the back, that Sirius had bought with his Uncle Alphard’s inheritance because he found out about Muggle punk rock that year—was thrown on casually over a white T-shirt and dark skinny jeans. The leather jacket broadens out Sirius’ shoulders, hugs the muscles of his arms, and Remus swallows. Photo-Sirius bites his lip with a smirk, hair swept across one shoulder and falling forwards. _Merlin._ He’d always been so cocky. Remus would always roll his eyes at Sirius’ arrogance, tell him off sometimes, but they both knew Remus liked it somewhat too. Remus didn’t like that he liked it, but it’s a tired conversation at this point, worried in Remus’ head when he can’t sleep and wonders why he’s in love with the man who killed all his friends.

Remus wonders, then, if he’s really still in love with Sirius, or if he’s just in love with the idea of him. Remus doesn’t know if the two are different.

When Remus remembers how he had wanked to this photo over the summer holidays between Sixth Year and Seventh Year, he promptly turns to another page.

In this photo, snow lightly dusts the shoulders of two boys facing away from the camera. Remus recognises the back of Sirius’ head, his long black hair falling past his shoulders, adorned with snowflakes. Sirius has no right looking fucking _ethereal_ , the snow falling on his soft black hair (Merlin, it was so soft—Remus would run his hands through Sirius’ hair all the time, scratch behind his ears in the way Sirius liked it; Sirius would never let anyone but Remus touch his hair). Sirius holds Remus’ hand in the photo. Peter took this photo in Hogsmeade; according to the date scratched beneath the photo, it was taken _15/12/77_. Though Remus can’t see his or Sirius’ faces, he thinks they look so, so young. So, so young and so, so in love.

Flicking through these photos is like looking at someone else’s life. The boy whose back is turned to the camera surely can’t be the same person as the man looking at the photo now; the Remus Lupin in the photographs cannot be the Remus Lupin in nineteen ninety-two.

Remus turns to another page, and he lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding when he sees that Si—that _he_ isn’t in this photo. It’s a photo of James, red and gold paint streaked across his cheeks, an enormous silver trophy cup raised above his head. Remus remembers Lily taking this photo in Seventh Year, right after it had been announced that Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup. Remus only remembers James looking happier on his wedding day.

Remus puts the photo album down again. He picks up another piece of parchment, breath leaving his lungs when he notices the handwriting.

> _Dear Remus,_
> 
> _I hope you are well. Keep studying hard for your NEWTs—I’m sure you’ll smash them. You’re brilliant, and I could not be a prouder mother._
> 
> _Dad has gone to Egypt to deal with a particularly nasty poltergeist. I told him to send you some postcards of the pyramids. I wish we could go there as a family!_
> 
> _Now, I only bring this up because I know you’ll ask me, but please do not worry about me. You should be worrying about yourself, young man._
> 
> _The doctor says the cancer has spread, but they still have treatments I can use. Your father has also tried giving me a potion for it, but it’s only made me ill, and it hasn’t affected the cancer. There’s nothing to worry about. I’m in capable hands._
> 
> _Much love,_
> 
> _Mum_

That was the last correspondence Remus had ever received from his mother before her death in his Seventh Year of Hogwarts. Remus never got to say goodbye due to his studies.

Remus carefully folds the letter and tucks it away into his box of his mother’s things. He wishes for the mercy of not outliving his father. Remus is tired of outliving everyone.

He reaches for the photo album again, flicking to another photo.

Remus holds out the camera at arm’s length, Peter next to him, James the furthest out. They’re all at the pub, smiling wearily at the camera. This was taken after Hogwarts, but they were blissfully naïve at the time, with hushed whispers of _when this is all over_. It was still meant to be the four Marauders forever; they’d grow old together, still pulling pranks when they’re sixty, wandering under the light of a full moon ‘till their paws and hooves give out beneath them.

Of course, one of the Marauders is conspicuously missing from the photo. Sirius had said he was out on Order business so he couldn’t make it to the pub. Remus’ stomach turns as he wonders where Sirius really was that night.

With that thought, Remus turns to another page, unable to stare at those three men for too long, knowing what’s about to happen to them.

Remus recognises the photo from the cake pictured in it. It’s a sloppy red velvet cake, misshapen and sunken in the middle (it was also a little bit underbaked in the middle, but they wouldn’t have known that when they took the photo). Sirius’ hair is in a bun, though black strands drift casually in front of his handsome face, and he wears a _KISS THE CHEF_ apron bought from a Muggle store. Sirius holds the cake proudly in front of him, his grin lit up by the birthday candles.

Sirius is covered in specks and patches of flour, little smears of red cake batter on his forearms and fingers. It was Remus’ twentieth birthday and the height of the War. They were both meant to be on Order missions that day, but Sirius had angrily insisted to Dumbledore that Remus should have his birthday off, and Remus ought to spend his birthday with Sirius. It occurs to Remus then that perhaps Sirius just wanted fewer people on-duty for Order business. Marlene and Dorcas had been badly injured when they came back from that mission: the mission that Remus and Sirius were missing from.

Just then, Remus can’t bear it anymore. He can’t fucking take this. He shuts the photo album and waves his wand so that the papers all go flying into various crates and boxes. They’re probably all in the wrong box, but he doesn’t care at this point.

Sometimes Remus wonders if the Marauders were ever real, or if they were just something Remus made up to keep himself company on lonely nights. He’s grateful for keeping these mementos in those moments, because they’re proof that what Remus had was real. He just got incredibly lucky, and then went back to how things should have been all along.

Though the photos hurt, Remus is especially grateful that he keeps photos of him and Sirius, Sirius and him. If he doesn’t, it’s like Sirius never existed at all, and Remus _needs_ proof that Sirius was real, that he didn’t make Sirius up in his head, because Sirius is carved into Remus’ fucking bones and he’ll never be the same again. It would be a very Remus thing to be completely ruined by something he made up in his head. He’s glad that he got the privilege of being ruined by something real this time.

And this is all that’s left of them: the Marauders, so incredibly young, and so incredibly gone. Nothing but photographs and detention notices remain. _Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!_

Remus thinks, then, of Ben, and of Rebecca, and of all the strangers and acquaintances he’s slept with since he broke his dry spell. Love, to him, will always take the shape of a boy with sharp grey eyes and deathly black hair, with a cruel smirk and long fingers curling around a wand, lips drawn into the shape of _Avada Kedavra_.

Remus remembers the first time Sirius killed. He was there. A Death Eater shot a Killing Curse at James, barely missing, and Sirius sent one in return. Nobody from the Order brought it up; they all killed because it was war. Remus killed too.

He misses having Sirius beneath his nails, Sirius gripping around him, Sirius inside of him, Sirius’ mouth on his: Sirius, Sirius, Sirius. The proof of Sirius’ existence on his skin, between his lips, all around him—he’ll never have that again. Because Sirius Black is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and Remus knows what he’s lost, knows what he’s never getting back. Remus can get his dick wet with other people as much as he likes, but that never changes a thing. All roads lead to Rome, as they say.

Remus had thought that it was supposed to get easier as time passed, but no matter what changes, his feelings for Sirius never will. All his wounds still hurt as fresh as the morning after a full moon.

Remus climbs down the ladder out of his attic. The rain has subsided now.

  


* * *

  


_1993._

Remus chews absentmindedly on his chocolate bar, going over the letter he’s just sent to Dumbledore in his head. Fucking Dumbledore. He _knows_ that Remus has no choice but to accept; Remus has no stable source of income, never has, and he needs the Wolfsbane Potion. Besides, even if he didn’t need the job, Dumbledore knows that Remus could never say no to Dumbledore. He’ll be in debt for the rest of his life.

This September, Remus will board the Hogwarts Express again. He’ll return to the school he thought he’d left forever, patrol the corridors where he’d pull pranks, keep his supplies in the storage cupboards where he’d snog _him_ —it’s all too much to bear.

Dumbledore isn’t the only one Remus is indebted to, though. Teaching at Hogwarts means that Remus will be able to see Harry again for the first time since Harry was a baby. Remus owes this to James, at least, to look after his son. This is what Remus tells himself to smooth over the rough edges of his self-hatred: he’s doing this for James, not Dumbledore.

Just then, there’s an incessant tapping at the window of Remus’ living room. He puts the chocolate bar down and looks up to the window, where a great grey owl pecks at the glass, rolled-up paper attached to their leg. Remus stands up and walks to the window.

The owl is darkened by the shadows of the night. Remus’ cottage is in the middle of nowhere, so there are no street lamps to cast their eerie amber gaze onto the owl. The owl is barely a silhouette, illuminated by the distant specks of light glittering coldly down at humanity. Remus looks up to the sky, eyes drawn to the brightest star, and then to the moon, waxing gibbous.

The owl continues pecking at the window, so Remus opens it before the owl can scratch the glass. Remus unties the rolled-up paper from the owl and the owl proceeds to fly away, feathers rustling loudly as they attempt to catch the night breeze.

Unrolling the paper, Remus glances wearily at the words _The DAILY PROPHET_ , subtitled _THE WIZARD WORLD’S BEGUILING BROADSHEET OF CHOICE_. Remus will generally try to read the news so he’s not entirely out of the loop, but all the gossip about which professional Quidditch players are dating which singers has never been of any interest to Remus.

As Remus unrolls the paper further, though, his breath catches in his throat. His fingers grip tightly on the newspaper, thin paper tearing beneath his nails.

> **_SIRIUS BLACK ESCAPES FROM AZKABAN_ **

Beneath this headline, a terrifying man with sunken, grey-black eyes and matted long hair shakes at his bars. Remus remembers seeing this photo in the _Daily Prophet_ on the tenth anniversary of James and Lily’s death. He doesn’t recognise this man.

Remus looks back outside the window to the night sky—always the night sky, its stars and its moon, taunting Remus from afar. It occurs to Remus, then, that Sirius wouldn’t have seen this sky for twelve years. He wonders if it would be surprising that the night sky still looks the same, its incessant dance like the endless loop of two gold rings.

Is Sirius looking at the same stars right now? Is he looking at the moon and thinking of Remus? Is he looking at himself, shining as brightly as ever, and thinking of the time he and Remus lay beneath the stars together?

Remus can’t stomach reading the text of the front page article. He throws the newspaper into the fireplace and finishes his chocolate bar.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi: [Wolfstar Tumblr](https://lowatlupins.tumblr.com/)/[Writing Tumblr](https://kitsnxcket.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Reblog here: <https://kitsnxcket.tumblr.com/post/642323711160156160/andante>


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